Churchill's Grand Alliance: The Anglo-American Special Relationship, 1940-57

""It is as well that the ironies of history are hid from participants,"" says Charmley, the revisionist author continuing the history begun in Churchill: The End of Glory; A Political Biography (LJ 9/1/93). Churchill, the optimistic, myopic imperialist, turned to America for help in facing down Germany's onslaught in 1940. FDR, cool, pragmatic, unemotional, finally entered the war with his own agenda, which relegated the British to junior players on the world stage. Churchill never understood or expected that alliance to strip Great Britain of its colonial power; FDR knew full well that there was no place for the ""old"" Britain in America's new, postwar plans. Charmley will have his detractors (he is, after all, casting a cold, skeptical eye on venerable British institutions), but he has crafted a solid, balanced portrait of a frightening, chaotic time. Recommended for public libraries.-Nancy L. Whitfield, Meriden P.L., Ct.